Ceramics and Glass

“The natural state of a stone was long believed to be flat on the ground, still and motionless.That was how the alchemist explained why a stone didn’t move. While water was believed to have a completely different natural state, more fluid and fluctuating. A river can rush forward while a lake can lie as smooth as a mirror. States that can rarely be attributed to stones”.*

Ten students whose artistic work from the beginning was about understanding, and about following their inner compass. Everything else has come to feel unnecessary. The three years that comprise a bachelor’s programme are meant to provide the opportunity to put words to the openings and gaps that appear now and then through the process. Directions and statements about what it is like to be a person in a world that is constantly in motion.

Things that for one’s inner being may have first appeared as abstract building blocks can now be viewed at Konstfack’s Degree Exhibition 2023.

Through seemingly simple devices, each student approaches a more direct statement. It is about creation, not reproduction: a creative process in which the inherent magic and humour of the everyday can take its place. Pieces that are taken from each student’s wordless world, but which have been put together piece by piece over the years in the Bachelor’s Programme Ceramics and Glass. To finally recreate the image, the story, the direction – building blocks in solid form – that were there under the tongue and in front of the retina. Attending an art college is largely about working from mind to representation, from representation to hand, and from hand to heart.

Jakob Solgren Nordenskiöld
Senior Lecturer in Ceramics and Glass

* J&J